Nocturnal
by msjgatsby
Summary: Mike wonders where Paige goes at Night.
1. Chapter 1

Written quickly, because I like to have my stories posted before the new episodes come out and they go out of canon because then I have problems finishing them.

Mike sat bleary eyed at the kitchen counter. He supported his cheek against his palm, leaning over a still full cup of coffee that had long ago gone cold. He turned around hopefully as he heard someone approaching, but slumped in his seat again when he heard the flirtatious whispers of Charlie and Briggs.

Charlie and Briggs walked into the kitchen with Briggs walking behind her, his arms wrapped around her so his hands pressed against her flat stomach. He kissed her neck affectionately as they walked, and Charlie leaned back into Briggs' embrace, a knowing smile on her face. Her smile became sad as her eyes fell upon the broken young man leaning against the counter looking defeated.

She pulled away from Brigg's embrace, not wanting to flaunt their affection. She walks ahead of Briggs into the kitchen, to lay a hand on Mike's shoulder. Briggs followed her, walking over to the coffee pot pouring himself a mug. He grimaced as he took a sip, wondering how long the pot had been sitting there, but didn't say anything.

Mike doesn't make eye contact with either of them. He just focuses on the mug of coffee he manipulates between his fingers.

"Rough night Mikey?" Charlie asks sympathetically.

"I've had worse." Mike says simply. He doesn't mention that the only nights worst than this was the night his Grandfather died, the night Eddy shot himself, the night Lena died and, worst of all, the living nightmare when Paige went missing.

"What's keeping you up?"

"Well let's see. My career in DC is at a dead end. No one in the house is talking to me. There's a dirty cop who murdered seven people in front of me, who knows I'm out to get him. I need to hurry up and close this Solano thing before they figure out what we're doing and execute Johnny, and with Sulla dead, I don't even know where to start." Finally Mike adds quietly under his breath the real thing that's bothering him, "Paige, didn't come home again last night."

"She's fine Mikey. I talked to her on the phone earlier. We're meeting for brunch." Charlie tries to comfort the agent. The entire house had been affected by Paige's disappearance, but none so much as Mike.

"Did she say where she was last night?" Briggs asks, sounding casual but Charlie knew he was up to something. She shot him a look, and he made a subtle head motion over to Mike, who had perked up a little, listening carefully for Charlie's answer.

"She didn't say. She's not talking to much of anyone in the house these days." Charlie replies.

"Except Jakes…" Briggs says, as Jakes comes strolling into the kitchen right on cue, but hearing the tone in Briggs' voice, he turns right back around and exits the kitchen without getting anything.

"Oh no, I know that tone. I'm not getting involved." Jakes mutters to himself, fleeing the house and heading out the door to find coffee elsewhere.

"This is the fourth time this week she's been out late." Mike mutters to his cold cup of coffee. "Something's going on."

"She's not talking to you at all, huh? Something happen? You two seemed pretty close…" Briggs digs for information from Mike. He wasn't stupid. Everyone knew something was going on with the two blonde agents, but no one knew any details. It was one of those things no one talked about.

Mike just ignores the question and sips his cold coffee defiantly.

Realizing he wasn't going to get an answer, Briggs turns to Chuck. "What do you think Chuck? Any idea of what our little blondie is up to? Think she's moonlighting as a DJ again?"

Charlie rolls her eyes at the antics of both the men. No one in this house ever just talked anymore. They were always playing some angle, especially these two idiots. They were no where near as smooth as the two of them seemed to think they were. Charlie saw right through both of them. She walks forward and plucks Mike's cold cup off coffee from his hands, dumping it down the sink. She cuts in front of Briggs who has just made a fresh pot and pours Mike a new glass.

"I didn't ask and she didn't say. What? Like neither of you ever kept some secrets? Give the girl some space." Charlie says, slamming the fresh cup down in front of Mike.

"Well things have been a little tense around here recently, and you know Paige. She's probably just found herself a new boyfriend to take the edge off." Briggs says the words to Charlie with a casual air, but he is clearly watching Mike for a reaction. Mike is clearly listening intently now, his fingers curling around the hot cup of coffee.

"Yeah, it could be. I mean it has been a while…" Charlie sees what Briggs' plan is and joins in on goading Mike. As much as he denied it, everyone knew the kid was in love with her. It was about time he admitted it.

"Yeah, it has been… When was the last time P-funk came out to play? She usually has a new boy toy each week." Briggs said. Sure he was slightly exaggerating Paige's dating activities, but he had given up trying to keep track of her many suitors months after she first came to Graceland. The men never lasted very long. Ever since Mike had arrived at the house, Paige's habits for bar and bed hopping had cooled, and it hadn't gone unnoticed by Briggs. At first he thought maybe she was just calming down and getting sick of the dating scene, but now he's suspecting she just stopped outsourcing her sex and was getting it from someone within the house.

Mike's fingers nearly break the handle of the mug but he remains silent.

"I don't know. At least since before Bates left. Do you think anything was going on with the two of-" Charlie ups the ante of taunting Mike, and Briggs looks at her with admiration for using the Bates card.

"No." Mike's voice rings out firmly, interrupting Charlie before she can finish. "Nothing happened with her and Bates."

"How do you know? You were in DC. Something could have-"

"She told me." Mike interrupts simply, not letting himself dwell on the thought an instant longer, "And even if she did, which she didn't, Bates was transferred to New York. So it doesn't explain why she's not coming home now."

"Relax Mikey. So Paige goes out every couple of nights. Even if she's got a guy out there, she's not the type to let a man get in the way of her work. She's not going to go fall in love and start making stupid mistakes. She's really good about keeping her feelings separate from her work."

"She didn't with Lina." Mike mutters under his breath.

"That's different. That is her work and her passion. It's why she does the job. I'm talking about sex. She's not going to fall in love with some guy and completely lose her head over him. She doesn't work like that. She can keep them separate." Charlie lectures.

"Believe me I know." Mike grumbles to himself.

"Then why are you really worried?" Charlie asks, hoping Mike will finally just admit that he's in love with the girl and he's jealous as hell.

"Because I need her here!" Mike says harshly, and then covers his tired eyes with his hand, knowing how that sounded. "I need everyone here. We had a major setback with the Solano's, and I've got Markum breathing down my neck, we're almost ready to do this bank robbery, and I need everyone's full focus on this case. I can't have her distracted right now."

"You seem pretty distracted yourself. Go get some sleep. You look like shit." Charlie ruffles his messy hair.

"You talked to her? Like actually heard her voice? She's safe?" Mike's voice gets soft as he asks Charlie.

"Yeah, Mikey. She's fine. I'm going out to meet her for brunch right now. Get some sleep."

"Yeah… Yeah ok." Mike says, dragging his tired body up from the kitchen towards the stairs,

"Get some sleep man." Briggs pats Mike on the shoulder as he walks by.

"Tell her…" Mike turns to Charlie and thinks about what he wants to tell her. "Tell her that I need a write up of all the Dealers we could have possibly linked to Solano on my desk by four o'clock."

* * *

"What do you want now?" Jakes grumbled at the agent who was waiting for him outside his room.

"What's going on with her?" Mike cuts straight to the point.

"Paige? I think she's out to brunch with Charlie." Jakes says noncommittally, trying to walk past Mike to leave, but Mike puts a firm hand on his shoulder to stop him.

"Not now, I mean at night. Where's she going?" Jakes remains tight lipped, and Mike sighs with frustration, "You're the only one in the house she's talking to. I'm leading this op. I need to know where my agents are."

"So pull rank and ask her yourself."

"She won't talk to me." Mike admits.

"Then what makes you think I will?" Jakes asks, pulling back away from Mike's hand on his shoulder. "Look, you blew it. Just give it up. Move on. It's not like you seem to have a problem finding new girls to get in your bed. Paige? Blondie? Maryland? I can't quite keep them all straight. They all look the same to me."

"I don't…" Mike started to argue but then realized it would be pointless. "Paige is different."

Jakes gives him a doubtful look.

"Look I just want to make sure she's safe. She's been acting strange and she won't talk to me recently. Jakes, I gotta know she's ok, man. Can you please just tell me anything?" Mike pleads his voice desperate.

"Look, I'm not going to become the middleman for whatever shit the two of you have going on." Jakes says grumpily, Mike's face falls and Jakes hesitates before his voice softens and he adds, "Look, I can't tell you, but maybe we can meet for a drink or something, say Jackson's hole around eleven?"

"Jackson's hole? That's clear on the other side of town-" Mike begins to argue but Jakes gives him a meaningful look.

"Look you want to learn about your girl or not? Just be there. Eleven."

* * *

Mike is sitting at the bar. It's 11:25 and there's no sign of Jakes. Mike has called with no response. He clearly got stood up. He's about to leave, but then he notices Paige across the bar sitting at a table with an attractive older gentleman. Mike doesn't know the guy, but he's impeccably groomed with a dark haired man in a suit. Mike groans to himself. His intuition was right. Paige has a new man.

He watches the two sadly across the bar. It must really be over between them. Despite all odds, Mike had still held out hope that once this case was over, the two of them could find a way back to each other. He thought as long as she was mad at him, that it meant she still cared for him. That he could still get under her skin. But now it seems that she has moved on without him.

Mike has seen enough. He throws down money to cover his check and gets up to leave before she can see him.


	2. Chapter 2

Author's Notes: Last Chapter

* * *

Mike can't sleep that night. He's tells himself he's just thirsty as he grabs a beer from the fridge to help him sleep and it's not that he's stalling going to bed, waiting for Paige to come home. The door finally opens, and in she walks, looking tired. Her hair is mussed and her clothes are ruffled. He tries to hold back the jealousy of what she might have been doing.

"You're up late." She mutters as she walks by him towards the stairs.

"Yeah… You too. Working late?" Mike asks, waiting for her to lie to him.

"Yeah… No I just felt like a drink." She says in the clipped tone that seems to be specially reserved for Mike recently.

"I know." Mike says sipping his beer, "I saw you at the Jackson's hole."

"What were you doing there? Spying?" Paige sounds annoyed, but not necessarily surprised.

"Look, I know you were with a guy. I just wanted to say, I get it. It's over between us, and I'm going to have to accept that." Mike tries to apologize to her, but it doesn't come out as sincere as he hoped. He still sounds jealous, and love sick.

She looks a little stunned with his admission. Finally she whispers a soft, "Good."

"Yeah… well. I'm sorry it's taken me so long to come around." Mike says, every word hurting him as he says them. He wishes she would say something. Argue with him. Tell him it's not over and she still wants him. Hopes she'll yell or cry or react in some way. But like Charlie said, Paige isn't going to just fall in love with him because they slept together a few times.

"Ok then. Well, I'm going to bed." She mutters, her eyes on the floor.

A Paige starts to walk past him up towards her bedroom, but stumbles. Mike instinctively reaches out to catch her by the arm, but she howls in pain far greater than anything his grip should have caused. Mike jerks his hands away instantly. Their eyes connect, and she instantly realizes he knows something is wrong.

Mike stares at her, breathing deep, trying to makes sense of this. The first question that comes to mind is, "Did he hurt you?"

"Mind your own business." She jerks her arm away from him, anger flashing in her eyes.

"If one of my agents is getting abused it is my business." Mike is getting angry now. At her. At whoever did this. The anger starts coursing through his body and he tries to breath deeply to keep from losing control.

The idea of Paige being with anyone enrages him, but her being the victim of domestic violence? After all she went through with Sulla? And now she's lying to Mike about it? How did this happen? What has she been doing each night? Why would she be with this guy?

She turns to storm away to her room, but he refuses to let her walk away from him again. He is done giving her space. He wants to know what is happening. He grabs her roughly by her uninjured arm, spinning her back towards him. Holding her tightly in his grip, he grabs the collar of her black jacket and rips it roughly down to expose the bare skin of her arm in her tank top. He wants to examine the bruises, but he's not prepared for what he sees.

It's not a bruise that has her pained, it is an open gash in her arm that is still gushing blood. It looks like someone stabbed her. His touch immediately becomes tender, as his shaking hands attempt to remove her jacket fully from her body. Now that he knows the truth she lets him help her shrug the jacket off. He walks her into the kitchen where he sits her on a stool and grabs the first aid kit and a damp clean wash cloth.

"What happened tonight?" He asks as he tends to her cut as best he can. Shit it's so deep. He may not be able to do this. She may need stitches. Mike knows that if Paige didn't go to the emergency room for this though there's a reason.

Paige watches him as he tries to tend to her wound. Finally, Mike has the cloth held tight against her arm to provide pressure and he looks up at her, his eyes searching for an answer. She doesn't answer verbally. She reaches into her pocket with her other hand and pulls out a list. She hands it to Mike, and brings her arm up to hold the cloth in place while he reads.

He unfolds the paper and looks at it. It's a list of names, pricings, notes…

"What is this?" He asks, unsure what he's looking at.

"It's an inventory." Paige says dryly. "Of the _product_. It's not much to go on, but it's a starting place."

"Paige the girls are safe. You got them out." Mike assured her, worried she'd gone 'd shut Sulla down. Not in the way Mike wanted to, but the ring was closed. Paige shouldn't have to worry about this anymore.

"Not the one's who were already sold." She says darkly.

Comprehension dawns on Mike of what this list is. What she's been doing all these late nights. "You've been hunting down the John's who bought the other girls."

Paige's silence as she pulls back the cloth to look at the deep wound is all the answer Mike needs.

"Does the DEA know about this?" Mike asks, his voice shaking.

"No, it's not in our jurisdiction. Apparently once the heroin comes out of the girls, the DEA loses interest." Paige says dryly.

"What about the FBI? Customs? The Police?" Mike asks. She cannot be stupid enough to be doing this alone. No back up, it's a wonder she's come home. One day soon she won't.

"No Mike! No one else knows. The case is considered closed. The girls are just lost." Paige's voice breaks with emotion at the thought of all the scared tinkerbells out there.

"So you've been out there with no backup, no support. Every night you're acting like some vigilante-" Mike is having problems wrapping his head around this whole new twist, "Jesus, Paige! This is illegal, not to mention, dangerous, irresponsible, reckless... Do you have a death wish?"

"Maybe I do. After what happened, could you blame me?" Paige says darkly, and Mike looks at her in shock.

"No. You are not allowed to give up." He demands. Not his Paige, who has always been such a bright ray of sunshine despite the terrible dark things they had to live with as undercover agents.

"I couldn't save her." Paige breaks down crying, sobbing into Mike's shoulder, ignoring the pain in her arm as she clung to him. "I promised Lina I would save her and I couldn't. She trusted me. Now, she's gone."

Mike can't say anything to comfort her. He wants to tell her Lina's safe that she didn't fail, but he can't lie to her. Not right now. Not with her like this. He just shuts his eyes tight while she cries, holding her tightly

"I know you feel responsible, but it's not you who did this, Paige. It was Solano, and we're going to get him. We're going to make sure this never happens again." Mike tries to comfort her. He can't tell her Lina is safe or that everything will be ok, but he can tell her this. He lays soft kisses in her hair as she cries against his chest, "Just stay with me. You can't give up, Paige."

"It should have been me." Paige sobs into his chest. "It should have been me in there and not her. How can I keep going, when each day I have was stolen from an innocent girl?"

"No. It should not have been you. It shouldn't have been her either. Any of them." Mike says sounding fiercely protective as he holds her close, the blood from her arm staining through his white shirt. "Listen to me, ok? You are the strongest woman I know. You need to keep fighting. You are entitled to live your life and be happy. Just because there's people suffering out there doesn't mean you need to. You punishing yourself doesn't make life better for anyone. If anything you need to take as much joy as you can from life because there are people out there who can't."

"I was so broken. So hopeless. I didn't even believe you'd find me."

"I will always save you." Mike promises harshly, a promise he's afraid he won't be able to keep. He couldn't keep his promise about Lina.

"I was so scared. So helpless. I didn't feel like a person… there are girls still feeling that way out there." Paige continues talking as if she didn't even hear Mike.

"You're out now. You're safe." Mike tries to assure her.

"I shouldn't be." She's trembling in his arms.

"No, you don't get to say that." Mike insists, tears coming to his own eyes, "I did not bust in there and save you from that hell hole only to let you torture yourself instead. Paige, you are so loved. You need to fight."

"I can't help but think of all those other girls… How can I be free when they're not?"

"Look, I know what you went through was hell. I can't imagine. I don't want to. But you weren't the only one suffering when you were in there, Paige." Mike says softly.

"Please Mike. You may have been in the same building, but you were free to go. You weren't treated like a worthless piece of meat. You have no idea what I went through in there."

"I wasn't talking about me going under. I was talking about when you went missing Paige! No one knew what to do. Charlie cried. Briggs was so upset he couldn't comfort her. Johnny and Jakes didn't even have the energy to fight each other…"

"And you?" Her voice is soft.

"I…" Mike stares at her breathless, suddenly hit with all the emotion he felt when she was gone. It floods through him like a tidal wave and he does the one thing he's needed to do since she came home. He grabs her face and kisses her roughly. His tongue thrusting into her mouth. Their teeth clashing together. To his surprise she returns his kiss, tears still streaming down her face. He pulls her forward so her hips are wresting on the chair edge, and clings to her desperately. He presses against her, as if he's trying to force their two bodies into one. The kissing is violent and punishing and both claw at each other, desperate to drive out the loneliness that's been consuming them both. They are both groping each other wildly, but when Mike's hand accidentally grabs her injured arm, she cries out against his lips, and he instantly pulls away.

Without their lips touching the spell is broken. Mike grabs the cloth to press back to her injured arm. She takes it from him before he can touch her again. His embrace feels so familiar she can't resist from falling back into old habits and she doesn't know what that means. She knows she's not ready to forgive him yet. Not really. She slides down off the chair and past him. He lets her walk away, knowing he's messed up. He's not over her yet. Not by a long shot. He looks down at the fresh blood on his hand and sighs in frustration.

"Tomorrow night." Mike's voice is ragged as he tries to collect himself. "There's no way I can stop you from hunting down these girls is there?"

"You'd have to report me."

"And what would happen if I did?" Mike says with an underlying threat.

"They'd have to open an entire investigation. Everything. Graceland. My going under with the tinkerbells. What Sulla did to me. My recent what did you call it? Vigilante justice." Paige starts listing the consequences stubbornly for Mike.

"How bad is that?" Mike asks. "What are we talking about here?"

"Aggravated assault at the very least." Paige says honestly.

"Jesus, Paige." Mike runs a hand down his face, wondering how bad she'd beaten these guys. He was sure the assholes deserved it, but she was operating outside of the law here and the courts would see it differently.

"They'll dive into all that. All my old cases. My psych profile. My sexual history…" Paige pauses before adding with a knowing tone, "Lina's disappearance."

There's a tense moment as Mike and Paige stare at each other. He still can't bring himself to tell her what he did even though he can tell she already knows.

"If that cut keeps bleeding I want you to get stitches." Mike finally breaks the silence looking at her arm from across the room. The blood as trickled down it and is now dripping from her fingertips.

"I'm fine. I've got some medical glue in my room." Paige says, and Mike rolls his eyes at her stubborness.

"Medical glue… Perfect. Fucking crazy woman…" Mike grumbles under his breath, before taking a deep breath to calm himself. He knows why she can't go to the hospital, because then she would have to file a report. Still his need to keep her safe is thrumming through his veins.

Paige pauses in the stairwell and looks him up and down warily, trying to decide what he's going to do now that he knows her secret. She warns hesitantly, "You can't stop me, Mike. Tomorrow night, I've got a lead and I'm going."

"I know." He says, rubbing his temples anxiously. "And tomorrow night, I'm coming with you."


End file.
